Pulling the Red Wire
The Nico on the TSA blog suggests it’s a bad idea to fly with home-made electronic devices because altoid tins with wires in them look pretty suspicious when packed into someone’s luggage.
He’s right, but he completely misses that anyone with half a brain can put their altoid tin inside the shell of an external hard drive. I’ve often wondered how screeners at the TSA can tell the different between the legitimate devices and plastic shells with dangerous innards. The reality is that they probably can’t make the distinction. I was once asked to take my iHome alarm clock out of my backpack for additional screening – they simply did a cursory physical inspection of it and would have missed anything non-typical about it. Even if the TSA can see inside electronics, they will be limited by their knowledge of electronics. So although they might know what the innards of a Macbook look like, they might not have a clue as to what a wireless router, Sega Saturn, or Keepon looks like on the inside.
Tags: tsa